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Creality Ender 3 Printing In Mid Air

Hi everyone,

I'm brand new to the forum, so Happy New Year, and I'm excited to get started!

So, I'm a 3D printing newbie so sorry in advance for my ignorance. However, I'm very experienced in 3d modeling in Maya, and can edit models to my heart's delight. Here is a screenshot of something I would love to print for my son with his new Ender 3 he just got. So, I've learned how to level the bed just fine, I've got good adhesion and print quality, but when the print gets to the area I've marked on the screenshot, it trys to print in mid-air! I've had to cancel the print twice now at the same point.

As you can probably tell, there's not much room between the "C" and the bed. So, is this just a case of having to add some kind of support in that area, or is there a setting I can adjust so that it won't start printing it until it's actually attached to the basketball? I suspect I may encounter a problem with the guard on the sword on the right side as well.

Two ways to do this.
1) enable supports in the slicer and it will print supports for any areas of the model that won't ordinarily print.
2) design it specifically for 3d printing.

The way I suggest is to slice the model and then go through the preview slowly. Anywhere you get material appearing in mid air will be a print failure.
You can build supports into your model yourself, or let the slicer do it.

I'm using Cura, which does have support settings of course, so I'm exploring that now, and yes I've considered just adding my own to the model and clipping them off. I think the sword blade may give me issues also, no? Should I insert 1 or 2 "posts" between it and the ball as well? I suppose this all will just be trial and error until I grasp the process.